A big debate about paying farmers.

 Word has it that heavy discussions in Washington in the Senate  have begun and $9.3 billion is at stake with the issue being ending direct payments to farmers and replacing them with subsidized insurance programs in the event that farmers lose out to bad weather or bad pricing. I guess the belief is that farmers have always been cottled and we are in tough times that can’t afford such luxuries. I called up Dick Rush, Executive Director of the Farm Service Agency in Boise.  “Stopping payments to farmers, how does that affect farmers and what is your take on it? The Senate is considering what we call the Farm Bill right now. One of the things that the Senate is talking about is the elimination of what we call direct payments. If you qualify, we will just give you a direct payment every year. One farm prices are high like they are today, that just doesn’t seem right to a lot of the public so the Congress is saying let’s just take that out and associate that payment with when it is really needed… When commodity prices really fall or there are disasters or whatever it might be.”